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Tran Duc Anh Son , a historian in Danang , Vietnam , says his government is afraid to use the records he uncovered to challenge Beijing . That’s why we have many documents that are kept in the dark . Credit Quinn Ryan Mattingly for The New York Times .

Danang - Vietnam — Eight years ago , officials in Danang asked Tran Duc Anh Son to travel the world in search of documents and maps that support Vietnam’s territorial claims in the South China Sea .

He did , and he concluded that Vietnam should challenge China’s activities in waters around some of the sea’s disputed islands , as the Philippines successfully did in a case that ended last year . But his bosses would not be moved .

They always say to me , « Mr Son , please keep calm » , he said during an interview at his home in Danang , the coastal city where he is the deputy director of a state-run research institute . « Don’t talk badly about China » .

Vietnam’s top leaders are « slaves » to Beijing , he added bitterly , as torrential rain beat against his windows . That’s why we have many documents that are kept in the dark .

Dr Son’s mission , and his bosses’ demurrals , are signs of the times in Vietnam , which has always lived in China’s shadow but also harbors a fierce independent streak .

China’s assertiveness in the sea has caused deep anxiety for Vietnam , which regards territorial sovereignty as a sacred principle , and emboldened the government to promote claims over the disputed Spratly and Paracel archipelagos more aggressively .

Yet even as evidence for such claims piles up , analysts say that Hanoi has been reluctant to weaponize it . China , after all , is Vietnam’s next-door neighbor and largest trading partner , as well as an increasingly assertive hegemon that is building a string of military outposts on reclaimed land in the sea .

Everyone in Vietnam , government and nongovernment , has the same sense that the Chinese should stay away from those islands , said Liam C Kelley , a professor of history at the University of Hawaii at Manoa who has studied the roots of the relationship between the 2 countries .

But he said the recent surge of nationalism over China’s expansive vision raises a thorny question: How do you position yourself as defending Vietnam from China when China is basically your backbone?

Dr Son in his office with a historical map of the South China Sea — or the East Vietnam Sea , as his government calls it . Credit Quinn Ryan Mattingly for The New York Times .

Chinese dynasties ruled present-day Vietnam for a millennium , leaving positive cultural legacies but also a trail of resentment . Beijing helped Hanoi defeat the French to win independence in 1954 but also invaded northern Vietnam in 1979 , setting off a brief border war .

In 2014 , anti-China sentiment flared when a state-owned Chinese oil company towed an oil rig to waters near Danang , provoking a tense maritime standoff and anti-Chinese riots at several Vietnamese industrial parks .

Interest in territorial sovereignty has long been in the heart of the Vietnamese people , said a senior Vietnamese legal expert in Hanoi , who insisted on anonymity to discuss a sensitive political matter . But the oil rig crisis has greatly magnified the interest .

China has controlled the Paracels since 1974 , when it seized them from the former government of South Vietnam in a naval clash . It has bolstered its foothold in the Spratlys recently through an island-building campaign .

Chinese officials and scholars seek to justify Beijing’s claim to sovereignty over waters that encircle both archipelagos — represented by what they now call the nine-dash line — by citing maps and other evidence from the 1940s and ’50s .

But some in Vietnam , like Dr Son , are trying to marshal their own historical records — even if they may have little power to dissuade China .

Dr Son , 50 , and other Vietnamese scholars say the Nguyen dynasty , which ruled present-day Vietnam from 1802 to 1945 , wielded clear administrative control over the Paracels by sending survey parties and even planting trees on them as a warning against shipwrecks . This happened decades before imperial or post-revolutionary China showed any interest in the islands , they say .

The Chinese know very clearly they never mentioned the Hoang Sa or the Truong Sa in their history books or historical maps , Dr Son said , using the Vietnamese terms for the Paracels and Spratlys .

By contrast , he said , he found evidence in more than 50 books — in English , French , Dutch , Spanish and Portuguese — that a Nguyen-era Vietnamese explorer planted the royal flag in the Paracels in the 1850s .

International arbitration over territorial sovereignty can only proceed if both parties agree , analysts say , and China has shown no interest in that .

Fishermen preparing to go to sea from Danang . A Chinese oil rig towed into waters nearby provoked a tense maritime standoff in 2014 and set off anti-Chinese riots . Credit Quinn Ryan Mattingly for The New York Times .

Still , the frenzy of interest in Vietnam’s maritime history since about 2012 has produced a buzz in the state-run news media — and a few unexpected heroes .

One is Tran Thang , a Vietnamese-American mechanical engineer who lives in Connecticut . He said by telephone that he had donated 153 maps and atlases to the Danang government in 2012 after ordering them on eBay for about $30 000 .

Among Vietnamese academics who study the government’s territorial claims in what it calls the East Vietnam Sea , Dr Son is among the most prominent .

He was born in 1967 in Hue , about 50 miles northwest of Danang , and his father was killed in 1970 while fighting for South Vietnam . I only remember the funeral , he said .

He grew up poor , he said , but excelled at Hue University , where his history thesis explored Nguyen-era porcelain . He later directed Hue’s fine arts museum and led a successful bid to make its imperial citadel a Unesco World Heritage site .

As a student poking around dusty archives , Dr Son said , he would photocopy maps that highlighted Vietnamese territorial claims in the South China Sea . So when top officials in Danang asked him in 2009 to pursue the same research on the government’s behalf , he said , he leapt at the chance .

I’m always against the Chinese , he said by way of explanation . Chinese scholars have been conducting rival research for years with support from Beijing , he added , and he sees his own work as payback .

Danang officials allowed Dr Son to recruit a seven-member support team , he said , but did not fund his international travel . He said he paid for some of the research that he has conducted since 2013 across Europe and the United States , where he was a Fulbright scholar at Yale University , out of pocket .

Dr Son , the deputy director at the Danang Institute for Socio-Economic Development , said he still held out hope that Vietnam would take China to court .

But he also said he was not holding his breath and had little say in the outcome .